


Come Home

by likethenight



Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works & Related Fandoms, The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: (sort of), Family Reunions, Fluff, Gen, Gift Giving, Kidnap Dads, Reunions, Tolkien Secret Santa, Tolkien Secret Santa 2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-24
Updated: 2020-12-24
Packaged: 2021-03-09 23:54:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27961097
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/likethenight/pseuds/likethenight
Summary: Elrohir has always been fascinated with the story of Maglor. One Midwinter, he finally has the opportunity to do something about it.
Relationships: Arwen Undómiel & Elladan & Elrohir, Elrohir & Maglor | Makalaurë, Elrond Peredhel & Maglor | Makalaurë
Comments: 13
Kudos: 78
Collections: Tolkien Secret Santa 2020





	Come Home

**Author's Note:**

  * For [misseuph](https://archiveofourown.org/users/misseuph/gifts).



> This is a gift for misseuph/[gamjawo on Tumblr](https://gamjawo.tumblr.com). I hope this fits the bill, and I wish you all the delights of the season!

Elrohir had always been a little bit fascinated with the story of Maglor, doomed to wander upon the shores for all of eternity, singing laments for his lost family, the gems that had driven all of them mad, his own hopeless predicament. His father would not speak of him, nor of his brother Maedhros, but Elrohir had managed to wheedle most of the story out of Erestor in bits and pieces over the years, and had come to understand the likely reasons for Elrond’s reticence. Elrohir could not imagine losing his family once, let alone twice over, two different families and two terrible losses. Three, if one counted Elros, he thought. He especially could not imagine losing his twin. 

He tried to be extra nice to his father after he had put all the pieces of the story together, extra good, extra understanding, although being an Elfling with a mischievous streak as wide as the Bruinen and a twin whose own mischievous streak was twice as wide, he did not always quite manage it. But as he grew up he found himself thinking of his father’s story often, and vowing to do everything he could to keep his own family together. And if he nurtured a faint, unrealistic hope in the depths of his heart that he could one day, perhaps, go to the shore and find Maglor, persuade him to come home to the Last Homely House, he never spoke of it to anyone, not even to Elladan, to whom he told all of his other secrets. 

The years slipped by and turned to centuries, centuries to millennia, and the twins grew from Elflings to young Elves to seasoned warriors, chief lieutenants to Glorfindel, their father’s Captain of the Guard, experienced soldiers; but Elrohir never quite forgot his dream of reuniting his father and his…well, he wasn’t sure how to describe Maglor, in relation to himself. Grandfather? Foster-grandfather, adopted grandfather, distant cousin? It lived at the back of his mind, curled up, sleeping, and mostly he never thought of it, but it was there, all the same.

When the catastrophe came, and Elrohir’s family was indeed broken after all, he did forget it, for a time, lost in his grief for his mother, his pain for her torment, his furious, desperate desire for revenge. He and Elladan both lost themselves for a while, after their mother had gone to the Grey Havens and sailed West, her spirit irretrievably broken though her body was healed. They rode out hunting the Orcs that had done this to her, time and again, and once they had slaughtered those Orcs they rode out again to find more, and more, tireless in their quest for revenge, and they would return home to Imladris blood-stained and with a wild look in their eyes that never quite faded, no matter how much Glorfindel and Erestor tried to counsel them, no matter that their father could not quite look at them straight, could not quite meet their gaze. 

But eventually, Elrohir returned to himself a little, and he remembered, and now it burned with a new urgency within him. He could not bring his mother back, but perhaps - perhaps he could - perhaps he could find Maglor, talk to him, persuade him to come home. 

It was a wild hope, he knew, a faint hope, a fool’s hope; there was no way to know for certain where Maglor was, along the hundreds of miles of coastline, no way to know if he was even still there, or, if he was, and Elrohir could find him, that he would listen to what Elrohir had to say. There was also no guarantee that Elrond would be pleased to see him, would not cast him back out to wander alone for eternity, no matter that all were welcome in the Last Homely House East of the Sea. But something made Elrohir hope, something that reminded him of the idealistic Elfling he had once been, who only wanted to make his father happy. And now, more than ever, he wanted to see his father smile again.

It was a month or so before Midwinter when he and Elladan found themselves hunting further west than usual; there had been reports of Orc packs scavenging almost to the coast, south and west of the Shire. Something made Elrohir slip a small package into his saddlebag, something that had been sitting at the back of a drawer in his bedroom for two thousand years and more, waiting for the right opportunity. This probably would not be it, he knew, but just in case - just in case, he would take it with him. 

They rode hard for two weeks, picking off the odd Orc pack here and there, and when they reached the Sea it was late one afternoon, the sun setting in ribbons of crimson and purple over the water. Elrohir stood on the clifftop and stared out towards the horizon, missing his mother more than he had in a long time, now that the bloodlust had faded a little. 

Elladan came to stand behind him, resting his chin on Elrohir’s shoulder and wrapping his arms around his chest. “What are you thinking of, gwanûr-nín?” he murmured, and Elrohir sighed. 

“Nana. All the way over the Sea. Do you think she misses us?” He could not quite keep the plaintive tone out of his voice; he felt like an Elfling again all of a sudden, lost and alone and wanting his mother. 

“All the time,” Elladan said softly. “As much as we miss her. We’ll see her again one day, you know we will.”

“I know,” said Elrohir, “but that doesn’t make it any easier now. And Ada…you’ve seen the way he looks at us. Like he sees her, instead of us. He’s already lost so much. I don’t understand how she could leave us.” He paused, shook his head, sighed bitterly. “Well, I do, of course I do, she couldn’t have done anything else, but at the same time…” He trailed off, and Elladan squeezed his shoulders. 

“Me too,” he said. “Come on, let’s go and light a fire and pitch the tent. Then tomorrow we’ll make for home. It’s not long until Midwinter and you know we can’t miss that.”

Elladan loosed his arms from about Elrohir’s shoulders and went to build the fire, but Elrohir lingered a while on the clifftop, until he heard the sounds of his brother unrolling the tent and beginning to hammer the pegs into the ground. He went to help, and tried to cast his melancholy from his mind as they put the tent up, sat and warmed themselves by the fire, ate their dinner, and once it was dark crawled into their bedrolls to sleep. Early to bed, early to rise, and they had a long road ahead of them on the morrow.

Elrohir woke to darkness edged with silver, somewhere in the middle of the night, immediately awake and certain that he could hear something. Elladan slept on, but Elrohir, hand on the dagger he always kept under his pillow, crawled carefully out of the tent, looking around for danger but seeing nothing but the empty landscape, lit by the moon. He listened hard, and again he heard it, the roar of the surf but something over it, intertwined in it, something that sounded like music. 

A low voice, more beautiful than any Elrohir had ever heard, rose above the noise of the Sea, the clear notes of a harp twining around it, and his heart almost stopped in his chest to hear it. He ducked hastily back into the tent, before he could think too hard about it, and pulled the little package from the bottom of his saddlebag. And then, as though drawn by the voice, he went slowly over to the edge of the cliff, looking down to the beach. 

There was nobody there, or nobody he could see, but as he glanced to left and right he spotted a path down the cliffside and before he could even think about it he found himself making his way along it, winding steeply back and forth across the face of the cliff, until he came to the rocks and the sand of the beach. There was still nobody there, but still the voice sang, and Elrohir made his way out onto the sand, looking up and down the beach. He could see nobody, as far as his eyesight would reach; he looked up to the clifftops but saw nobody there either. Yet the voice sang on, and after a moment or two Elrohir sat down upon a rock and closed his eyes, just listening. 

The song was not one Elrohir knew, but it was beautiful, a delicate, aching lament for lost happiness and hope forsaken; it made Elrohir’s eyes sting, and for a long time he sat still, listening, not really noticing the tears that were streaming down his face.

Eventually the song came to an end and Elrohir returned to himself with a start; he needed to rest, if he and Elladan were to make their start before sunrise. He made for the foot of the cliff and the beginning of the path again, but before he began to climb, something made him take the little package out of his pocket and leave it on a rock near to the cliffs. It sat there, as he climbed further and further away from it, wrapped in cloth and oilskin, tied with string and with a label tucked in, written a long time ago in a rounded, careful hand. And it waited, for the one it was intended for, though Elrohir had no real hope it would ever reach him.

They left the next morning, riding for Imladris; the weather had turned crisp and cold, and their road took them through the Old Forest, the tree branches hung with frosted spiderwebs and weighed down with the first snow of winter. 

“We should take one of these home with us,” said Elladan as they rode, “it’d look lovely in the Hall of Fire.”

Elrohir was jolted out of his reverie by his brother’s words; he had not quite been able to get the strange song out of his head, ever since they had left the clifftop the morning after his odd experience on the shore.

“It’d melt,” he said, absently, “before we even got it halfway home, let alone into the Hall.”

“Well, maybe,” said Elladan, “but if we put a tree up we could hang it with things so that it looks a bit like these. Glorfindel’s got enough necklaces and jewels to lend us a few, for starters.” He grinned, and Elrohir could not quite help a smile, distracted as he was. 

“All right,” he said, “when we get back we’ll go out into the woods and find a tree, and you can put it up in the Hall of Fire and watch Erestor have fifty fits about all the bugs you’ll have brought in with it.”

Elladan laughed. “That’s more like it.” He sobered after a moment or two. “Are you all right? You’ve been miles away ever since we camped by the Sea.”

Elrohir shook his head; he hadn’t felt like talking about it, but he had only ever kept one secret from his brother, and although this was part of it, he couldn’t quite keep the words from spilling out. 

“I heard something, during the night. A voice, singing, and a harp. I went down to the beach, but there was nobody there.”

Elladan raised his eyebrows. “Did you run across the legend of Maglor, gwanûr-nín?” he asked, and Elrohir nodded; Elladan had always been the practical one of the two of them, Elrohir the dreamer, the believer in myths and legends and things that could not be explained. It was why he had never confided in Elladan his hope that one day he could persuade Maglor to come home. But something, now, unstopped his tongue.

“I think I did,” he said. “And I - I left something for him, though I couldn’t see him, I don’t know if he was even there. If maybe I imagined it, after all.”

Elladan’s eyebrows went even higher. “You left something for him? What?”

“Something I’ve been keeping for a long time,” said Elrohir. “In case I was ever near the Sea. In case I ever came to somewhere he might have been.”

Elladan smiled affectionately, and leaned over to clap Elrohir on the shoulder. “You know he’s not there, don’t you?” he said, not unsympathetically.

Elrohir shook his head. “The tales say he wanders there still,” he said stubbornly, “and if he couldn’t go West, and Mandos wouldn’t have him in his Halls, where else would he be?”

Elladan clasped his shoulder again, just for a moment. “You read too many stories, gwanûr-nín,” he said, but there was a smile in his voice. 

“Just because it’s a story doesn’t mean it can’t be true,” said Elrohir, and that was where they left it.

The day after they arrived home, Elladan persuaded Elrohir out into the woods and they found themselves a fir tree, dug it up and brought it back into the valley, begging a large pot from the gardeners and setting the whole thing up in the Hall of Fire. As predicted, Erestor complained about bugs and parasites, but the twins gave the tree a good shake and nothing fell off it but a few needles, so Erestor tutted and left them to it. They begged some necklaces from Glorfindel, who handed them over with an air of great amusement, and spent an afternoon making chains and streamers from paper and draping everything upon the tree. Elladan brought down a handful of small stained-glass ornaments from where they usually hung in his bedroom window, and Elrohir raided Arwen’s room for ribbons; he knew she would have something to say about it when she and their grandparents arrived in a day or two for the celebrations, but he decided he didn’t care, and anyway she ought to have the chance to contribute to the decorations, even if she didn’t actually know about it in advance.

And Elrond, coming into the Hall of Fire to see what his sons were doing, took one look at their efforts, smiled, turned on his heel and left again, returning some while later with a star wrought from silver and gold, jewelled and delicate and eight-pointed. 

“Here, ŷn-nín,” he said, “this might look well upon the top of your tree,” and Elladan took it from him with a crow of thanks, persuading Elrohir to let him scramble up onto his shoulders so that he could fix the star to the top of the tree. 

“Ada, it’s perfect,” he declared, scrambling down again, and Elrohir saw his father’s face warm in a soft, affectionate smile, one he had not seen in a long time. 

“It’s perfect,” he echoed his twin; he knew the significance of this particular star, it appeared all over Imladris, and he had never quite been able to work out if his father was proud of it, or happy, or sad about it. But just at this moment, he thought that it might be a mixture of all three. 

After that the days tumbled together in a rush of preparations, the aroma of baking and the last-minute brewing of ale wafting from the kitchens so that it could be smelled all through the valley. The twins found themselves pressed into service running all manner of errands, and Elrohir all but forgot his strange experience by the seashore. Arwen arrived with their grandparents two days before Midwinter, and she, too, immediately joined in the preparations.

“Are those my ribbons on your tree?” she demanded when they went into the Hall of Fire to finish putting up the boughs of holly and ivy and fix a multitude of candles on every surface.

“We thought you wouldn’t mind,” said Elladan with a grin. “Anyway, you weren’t here to ask.”

“And it didn’t occur to you to wait?” Arwen wanted to know, and Elrohir, ever the peacemaker, stepped in. 

“We would have done, but we wanted to make sure it looked well before you arrived,” he said. “Since it’s something new. We wanted to get it right.”

Arwen gave him a look that told him she knew exactly what he was doing, but she softened it with an affectionate smile nevertheless. “Well, I think it looks lovely,” she said. “Even if you still can’t be trusted to stay out of my room and leave my things alone when I’m not here.”

“Perhaps you should spend more time here, then,” said Elladan, tweaking the end of one of her braids. “Then you could join in with all our fun.”

Arwen rolled her eyes. “You’re never here either,” she said, “you’re always out hunting Orc, and quite frankly that sounds like it’s not fun at all.”

“You’ve never tried it,” said Elladan, “you wouldn’t know,” and Elrohir drifted away from the two of them as they carried on bickering; they were always like this, especially when they were first reunited. He sat on one of the window seats and gazed across the valley for a while, and allowed himself to drift a little, thinking. Arwen was right, they spent barely more time in Imladris than she did, and he was beginning to wonder what the point of it all was. It would not bring their mother back, after all.

But perhaps - perhaps he might manage to bring someone else back, this year, after all, he thought, though he stifled it immediately. It would not do to get his hopes up over a silly Elfling’s idea. He had done what he could, but now he would have to accept that it would not, could not ever have worked.

On the night of Midwinter, everyone gathered in the Hall of Fire as the sun went down, and Lindir and his friends struck up a merry tune about firelight in the darkness. Out came the wine and the ale, and plenty of delicious food, and everyone settled down to celebrate the turning of the seasons on the darkest night of the year. 

Elrohir, sitting with Elladan, Arwen and Glorfindel, was on his third mug of ale when a movement in the doorway caught his eye, and he glanced over to see someone standing there, in the shadows, looking in. He did not recognise their face, half-hidden by a hood, and nobody else seemed to have noticed them, except him. A weary traveller, he supposed, come to find the household here since everywhere else would be empty; everyone was here in the Hall. 

And then the stranger’s eyes caught Elrohir’s and held his gaze, looking uncertain, almost stricken, and Elrohir’s heart stopped still in his chest as it had upon the clifftop. The hooded stranger was tall, black-haired, and slung across his back was something that looked very distinctly like a harp.

He slipped away from his siblings and Glorfindel and made his way as unobtrusively as he could to the doorway, before anyone else could see the stranger, and before the stranger could turn tail and run.

“I should not have come,” said the stranger as Elrohir reached him, and his voice was deep and rich and soft, and Elrohir shook his head, reaching out to place a hand on the stranger’s sleeve. 

“All are welcome here,” he said, and the stranger’s face contorted in bitterness for a moment. 

“I am welcome nowhere,” he said, and Elrohir shook his head again. 

“You are welcome here,” he said firmly. He did not quite dare ask whether his hunch as to the stranger’s identity was right, but the stranger’s next words confirmed it for him.

“The last surviving son of Fëanor may find no glad reception on either side of the Sea,” he said. “But I received a gift I had not looked for, and I could not help my curiosity.” He glanced around the room and then looked straight at Elrohir, examining his face. “You are his son, are you not? I can see it in your eyes.”

Elrohir nodded. “I am. His second son; my twin is over there, with our younger sister.” He nodded in the direction of his siblings, and the stranger - Maglor, his mind amended - looked long at them.

“And the Elfling who left the gift for me? You have another sibling?”

Elrohir shook his head, smiling somewhat sheepishly. “That was me,” he said. “When I was much younger, I decided I wanted to bring you home. But the opportunity never came.” He let out a rueful little chuckle. “Until a few weeks ago, when my brother and I were hunting near the Sea. I thought I heard you, but I could not find you. So I left the gift for you, just in case.”

“I know how to hide myself,” said Maglor, a terrible weight of sadness in his voice. “But I cannot keep silent. Even now, after so many thousands of years, I still cannot keep myself from singing.” He sighed. “You say you wanted to bring me home. I can only assume you knew very little about me.”

Elrohir shook his head emphatically. “I knew - I know - your story. Ada didn’t like to talk about it, but Erestor told me.”

“Erestor?” said Maglor. “He is here?”

“Over by the fire,” said Elrohir. “Probably talking to Ada, although Glorfindel will be over there soon trying to fill him full of enough wine that he’ll consent to a dance or two.”

“Glorfindel,” said Maglor. “That is a name I have not heard in a long time.”

Elrohir grinned. “There’s a story to it, but he is _that_ Glorfindel.”

Maglor nodded, but he looked distracted. “And I hardly dare ask about your father. Now that I am here, I - I wonder if I should have come at all.”

Elrohir opened his mouth to answer, but then he felt his father’s familiar presence nearby, and he glanced up to see Elrond approaching, an expression of disbelief and longing upon his face. 

Maglor froze, eyes wide and terrified, but Elrond kept coming, and when he was close enough he held out his arms and said, “Atya?” and Maglor sagged against him as Elrond pulled him into an embrace.

“Pityasilmë,” Maglor gasped, his voice catching and breaking, and Elrohir made to melt back into the crowd, but Elrond caught his eye and shook his head minutely.

“Stay, ion-nín,” he said, and Elrohir nodded and did as he was told.

After a moment or two, when it became obvious that this was not a reunion to be had in the doorway of a crowded Hall of Fire on the busiest night of the year, Elrond caught Elrohir’s eye again.

“I think we had better go to my study,” he said. “Will you bring three goblets and a flagon of wine?”

Elrohir nodded, although - “Three goblets, Ada?” he asked, and Elrond gave him the look that had always meant he was well aware that Elrohir was up to his neck in whatever was going on.

“Three goblets, ion-nín,” he said firmly. “I have the distinct feeling you have some explaining to do.”

Elrohir gave him a sheepish grin and scuttled off to collect the requested goblets and flagon; when he returned to the doorway Elrond and Maglor were gone, and he hurried down the corridor towards his father’s study. The door stood open, lamplight spilling out, and as Elrohir stepped inside he saw that Maglor was sitting in a chair by the fire, Elrond crouched at his knee. 

Elrohir closed the door behind him and set the goblets down upon a side table to pour the wine; he knew that even in his distracted state, his father would not appreciate him risking the precious documents upon his desk by pouring wine near them. He handed a goblet to Elrond, and then another to Maglor, who took it with hands that were trembling so badly that Elrohir thought he would surely spill the wine. He covered Maglor’s hands with his own for a moment, holding them steady, and gradually the tremors stilled and Maglor looked up at him with gratitude in his eyes. 

“I am glad you are here,” Elrohir murmured, and then he retreated to the other fireside chair with his own goblet, glad to have something to hide behind, a little, when his father turned to fix him with a steady gaze.

“I believe you have a story to tell me, Elrohir,” he said, and Elrohir took a sip of his wine, keeping the goblet held close to him; it didn’t provide much cover, but it gave him something else to look at, other than his father’s deep grey eyes.

“I left something for him, by the Sea, Ada,” he said, falteringly. “When I was little I wanted to bring him home to you, so I made him something, and I wrapped it and I wrote a note. But I never had the opportunity to do anything with it, so I saved it. And then Elladan and I heard of those Orc packs by the Sea, and I took it with me. I don’t really know what made me do it. Only - only when we camped by the Sea, I heard…” he broke off for a moment, remembering the unearthly beauty of Maglor’s song. “I heard a voice, singing, and a harp, and I couldn’t see anyone but I left the parcel there, just in case.”

“And I found it,” said Maglor, a little unsteadily. “A simple wooden flute, and a note in the hand of an Elfling, to the effect that their Ada lived in Imladris and his name was Elrond. And that the Elfling hoped that one day I would come home.” He shook his head. “I am not sure what made me pay it any heed. This is not my home, and it never was.”

“It is home to all who wish it to be,” said Elrond softly, gravely. “And that includes you, Atya.”

“But I - the things I have done -“ Maglor protested, and Elrond shook his head. 

“You took care of two Elflings whom you might just as well have put to death,” he said. “You cared for them as though they were your own. I have always felt that for me, at least, that outweighed at least some of what you did while you were bound by your father’s oath.”

Elrohir watched, his heart in his mouth, as the impact of Elrond’s words sank in. Maglor closed his eyes, tears spilling over onto his cheeks, and he shook his head very slightly. 

“You cannot mean it,” he whispered, and Elrond reached up to take his hands.

“Atya, I have not seen you for two Ages. I have missed you for as long, as I have missed so many others. Most of them cannot be returned to me, but with you there was always a possibility, however faint. This is my house and I say you are welcome here. Anyone who has anything to say about it may take it up with me.” Elrond squeezed Maglor’s hands gently, and turned to Elrohir. “And as for you, ion-nín, I had no idea you had invested so much in the story of my foster fathers.”

Elrohir gave him a sheepish smile. “I didn’t like to talk to you about it, Ada,” he said. “I didn’t want to upset you, and I thought it must be very upsetting.”

“You always were compassionate to a fault,” said Elrond. “And I find that I am particularly glad of it tonight, for you have returned to me someone I had thought lost for ever.”

Elrohir smiled, hiding his sigh of relief behind his goblet; he had been somewhat worried that his father would be angry, but that did not seem to be the case at all.

“I am keeping you from your celebration,” said Maglor after a moment, and Elrohir and Elrond both shook their heads.

“I would far rather have your company, Atya,” said Elrond. “But if you felt you wanted to join us in the Hall of Fire, you would be most welcome.”

“Nobody would know who you are, anyway,” said Elrohir. “Well, Grandmother and Grandfather might remember your face, but I don’t think Erestor or Glorfindel ever met you, and everyone else is too young to remember you. I mean no offence,” he added hastily, and Maglor gave him the faintest of smiles. 

“I take none,” said Maglor. “If you want me there - if you feel my presence will not cause a problem -“

“We’ll stand by you,” said Elrohir. “Like Ada said, if anyone has a problem with you, they’ll have to come through us. And Elladan and Arwen too, once we’ve told them about you.” A thought occurred to him. “They’ll be wondering where I am.”

“You go back to the Hall, ion-nín,” said Elrond. “Atya and I will follow you. You might perhaps warn your brother and sister of our guest’s identity, your grandparents, perhaps Erestor and Glorfindel as well, but to everyone else he will be a long-lost relation of mine who is most welcome at our feast.”

Elrohir nodded and let himself out of the study, making his way back to the Hall of Fire without a backward glance. When he got there, he saw that Glorfindel had persuaded Erestor to come and talk with him and Elladan and Arwen, and Elrohir breathed a sigh of relief, at least he could tell them all at once.

“Where have you been, pen-neth?” Glorfindel demanded as he approached them, and Elrohir rolled his eyes reflexively at the childhood nickname that Glorfindel insisted on still using for him and his siblings. 

“With Ada. And - look, we’ve got a visitor, but -“ he gestured them all to gather close. “Maglor’s here. But you’re not to tell anyone. He’s terrified people will recognise him and start something, but Ada’s so pleased to see him, and honestly I think he’s suffered enough, and -“

“Maglor?” whispered Erestor incredulously. “What on Arda -“

“It’s a long story,” said Elrohir. “But he’s here, and Ada’s going to bring him in in a minute, and he’s _welcome_ , and please someone keep Grandmother and Grandfather quiet?”

“I’ll do it,” nodded Arwen, and she was gone, whisking off into the crowd to find their grandparents. 

Elrohir looked at Elladan, Erestor and Glorfindel, all of whom were still looking somewhat thunderstruck. 

“I promise I’ll tell you,” he said, “later, but for now, will you just help me make him feel at home, and keep anyone away who might want to start something?”

“I knew something had happened by the Sea,” said Elladan, somewhat triumphantly. “But yes, of course we’ll help you. I’m offended you felt you had to ask.” He elbowed Elrohir in the ribs, and Elrohir breathed a sigh of relief, just as he caught sight of his father and Maglor coming into the Hall. Maglor had taken off his travel cloak and was dressed very simply in a plain, dark blue tunic and leggings, no adornments at all, and his hair fell either side of his face in a fall of ebony so dark it almost seemed to swallow the light from the candles around him, Elrohir thought. His own hair was black, but not like this. 

Elrond and Maglor made their way quietly through the crowd, coming to a stop beside Elrohir, and Erestor was the first to bow his head and greet their guest; Glorfindel followed suit, once Erestor had kicked him in the ankle to make him stop staring. Elrohir introduced his brother, and then they all moved towards one of the groups of chairs near the fire, settling down. Elrohir glanced over at his grandparents, and caught Arwen’s eye; did she want to come and meet their guest? She nodded, smiling a little tensely, and then tucked her hands one into Celeborn’s elbow and the other into Galadriel’s, leading them gently across the room; Elrohir thought that both his grandparents were wearing particularly blank expressions, but he hoped that was a good sign.

Galadriel inclined her head as they reached the little group. “Cousin,” she said calmly, and Maglor nodded awkwardly. 

“Cousin,” he replied quietly. “It is - it is good to see you.”

Galadriel nodded a little sharply. “Indeed,” she said, the tone of her voice strongly implying that she had a great deal to say about this but was holding it back out of consideration for the situation. “Well, a great deal of time has passed. Allow me to introduce my granddaughter, Elrond’s daughter Arwen.”

Maglor blinked, and Elrohir wondered if he had ever known who their mother had been; but before anyone could say anything, Arwen was sweeping to her knees in front of his chair, taking his hands. 

“I am so glad to meet you at last,” she said warmly, and Elrohir smiled; she had always been the one who was good with people, far better than he or his brother had ever been. “I know how much you have always meant to our father, and I hope you know how welcome you are in our home.”

Maglor blinked again and opened his mouth to speak, but no words came out, and Arwen laughed softly. 

“Do not worry,” she said. “I am sure this is all very overwhelming for you. Let us get you some more wine, and listen to Lindir and his friends - he is our resident musician, and I am sure he will be just as overwhelmed to meet you, at some point.”

“He is very good,” Maglor managed after a moment. “I heard him when I first arrived; in fact, it was the beautiful music, and the lights, that drew me here, when I could find nobody elsewhere.”

“Well, you’re here at Midwinter,” said Arwen merrily. “We always crowd in here and burn candles and light the fires and listen to Lindir. Sometimes some of us might sing too. Although the less said about my brothers’ attempts the better.” She laughed. “The only songs they know are terribly rude.”

Elrohir opened his mouth to protest, caught Elladan’s eye, saw his twin’s amused smile, and closed it again. 

“Perhaps I might join in, later,” said Maglor quietly. “Although I think I will certainly need more wine first.”

“We can arrange that,” said Glorfindel, leaping to his feet and going off in search of another flagon or two. 

“Good,” said Arwen, and she got to her feet again, casting around for a chair, until Elrohir caught her hand and pulled her down onto his lap. 

“Thank you,” he whispered in her ear, and she turned to smile at him. 

“This is all your doing, isn’t it?” she murmured, and he nodded. 

“How did you know?” he whispered.

“I always knew you wanted to bring him home,” she said quietly. “You never said anything, and I know Elladan never noticed, but I used to see you reading the story books, and you always spent the most time over the tales of Maglor and his brothers. And I used to hear you asking Erestor about Ada.” She laughed softly. “I notice things, gwanûr-nín. And I am glad your plan finally came to fruition. Ada has lost so much, so many people, I’m glad you were able to bring one of them back to him.”

“So am I,” Elrohir murmured, and as he glanced round at his family, at Elladan’s smiling face, at Erestor and Glorfindel pouring the wine, even at Galadriel and Celeborn as the tension slowly melted out of their faces, and most of all at Elrond and Maglor, who were looking at each other with expressions of wonder and bittersweet joy, he felt suddenly, triumphantly certain that he had done the right thing. Perhaps this was the best Midwinter festival he had ever had.

**Author's Note:**

>  **Sindarin translations**  
>  gwanûr-nín: my brother  
> nana: mama  
> ada: papa  
> ŷn-nín: my sons  
> ion-nín: my son  
> pen-neth: little one (literally: young one)  
>   
>   
>  **Quenya translations**  
>  atya: papa  
> pityasilmë: little starlight


End file.
